
Class E, 4 5 >: 



Book. 



The Doctrines of the Democratic and Abolition Parties Con- 
trasted.— Negro Equality.— The Conflict between "Higher 
Law" and the Law of the Land. 



SPEECH 




OF 



HOI. JERElIiH 8. BLACK, 



At the Hall of the Keystone Club, in Philadelphia, 



OCTOBER 24, 1864. 



Judge Black began by saving that he would 
promise the audience no amusing entertainment. 
These were serious times, and he would give some 
of the grave reasons which male him believe that 
the security of indipidual rights and the safety of 
the country itself from utter destruction, depended 
on the el-ction.of General McOlellan, 

Political contests, he proceeded to say. are not 
wtat they used to be. In former times we contende:' 
on iwints of policy on which we supposed the intertst 
of the country depended more or less; now our cp 
ponents themselves tell us that the life of the Go 
vtrni ent hangs on the issue. They are right. The 
life of this Government is the liberty of the people 
aad if they succeed in destroying liberty, the Go- 
vernment will be dead— dead without even the hope 
0it resurrection to a future life. 
m' The enemy we now have to contend against is the 
Abolition party ; that tody of which the original , 
nucleus was a little gang in New England, who 
met periodically to curse the Constitution and j 
blaj^pheme the Christian religion. It was (mall 
at tirst; but it has since giown with 
such portentous rspidiiy that its influence i 
now overshadows this whole continent There \ 



wag another organization which, for a brief while 
professed to be acting in concert with the Aboli- 
tionists while faintly dlsarproving their principles. 
But the fusion hag become perfect— the whole *■ J^' 
of the coalition, from the crown to ^^^^ ..^.i 
thoroughly saturated with Abolition doc '^^ ; 1 
Republican now dares to dissent from the ." I 

measures. Abolitionism is omnipotent in Congrefs '/ 
it controls the Executive with absolute swey- it 
commands an army whose numbers are counted 1 y 
hundreds of thousands— it Is preying at will upon 
the prostrate body of the nation. We must look 
fdirly into the face of that party if we wish to see 
the features of our enemy. 

Between that party and the Democratic party 
there exists such a diversity of sentiment, opinion 
and principle , as never before separated men in any 
country or any age of the world. We disstnt from 
them and they from us, upon every political subj- ot— 
in every question of fundamental law that ever was 
raised, and upon very many which were never consid- 
ered debatable by any body but themselves. There 
is not a sentence, line or letter in the Constitution, 
from the words • 'We the people, ' ' at the beginning 
of the preamble, (!own to the signature of ' George 






■Waghicgton, " at the foot of the Instrument, which 
they have not either cOTistrupd away altoerether, or 
elseptrt.npon it sotne interpretation entirely new and 
totally at variance with that which we always sup 
prsed to be the true one. 

We are aa wide asunder as the poles of the earth 
John Hampden did not differ fe much from Charles 
I nor M illiam Tell from Oessler, nor the Congress 
of 1776 from the ministry of George the Third. Nay ; 
the -most orderly, humane and anti revolutionary 
Frenchman that inhabited Paris In 1789. could not 
have differed from Robespierre about the use of the 
guillotine, more entirely than we differ from the 
Abolitionists ooncerningr the whole purpose and ob 
ject of t*»e Federa' Government. 

They are not opposed merely to the views held by 
US, their present antagonists; they are equally 
hostile to all the opinions entertained by the public 
men who preceded them. The principles of Ad 
ministration which ihey have introduced have been 
denounced and utterly repudiated by all the states 
men who ever he!d rfiBce under thi» Feder.al Govern 
ment. from the beginning of Washington's time 
to the end of Buchanan's. If the Abolitionists are 
riirht, then cur whole history is but the record of 
one great blunder; and all the men who had any 
connection with the Government, previous to 
1861, were ' 'fools as gross as ever ignorance made 
drunk ' ' No two political systems, framed for 
different countries or for different time3, have ever 
been more dissimilar than the Government of the 
United States as administered before 1861 and the 
same Government as administered since that time. 
Let us loot, for a moment, at some of the points : 

The Abolition theories which concern the rela- 
tions of the States to the General Government and 
to one another, conlound all our preconceived ideas 
np»n that subject. We supposed the United States 
to be a federative system, created by sovereign 
States, for the simple and sole purpose of watching 
over their common defense and general welfare. To 
that end. jurisdiction was given to the Federal Go 
I "* -nment over certain plainly speoifled classes of 

(ibjeots, and every other species of power was 
jxpresely withheld It was a political corporation 
strictly limited by its charter. It was not only 
agreed, but sworn to, that the affairs of each State 
should be controlled by its own will. Whether tiie 
States should use this right properly or improperly, 
wisely or unwisely, was, m our opinion, nobody's 
business but their own. By the unequivocal terms 
of the compact they had a right to make their local 
laws bad or good, just as they pleased, and it is as 
well known as any fact in history that the Union 
could not have been made on any other terms. 

But, the Abolitionists deny this vital principle so 
bitterly and so violently that every citizen, 
who presumes to hold, is, In their estimation, a . 
traitor. The great characteristic of their creed is 
the'claim they make for the people of one section to 
control the other in their local affairs. They hold it 
to be not only the right, but ihe bounden duty of 
the Federal 3overnment to dictate to the States 



their whole system of domestic admlrilptrarlon. 
This Is so clear in their opinion that any State 
which refuses to modify its local laws when com- 
manded to do so by the President, is guilty fef the 
most awful crime that man can commit; a crime for 
which the contumacious State deserves to be 
punished by having its fields laid waste, 
its towns burnt, its men butchered, its 
women and children driven houseless, homeless 
and starving into the woods. And it is announced 
upon the highest authority among them— the chief 
of their party, himself— that this awful scourge of 
war is not to be dlsoontinaed until the States now 
subjected to it, shall abandon the laws approved by 
themselves and adopt others which are more to the 
liking of the President and the party which supports 
him in other States. To show how emphatic and 
thorough their contempt is for our doctrine of State 
Bights, they think it perfectly proper to tear a 
sovereign State into pieces by main force and cast 
the bleeding parts to enemies and strangers, 
whilst they are yet warm and quivering 
with the agony of the separation. If one- 
tenth of the voters in a State shall feel or feign belief 
in this doctrine, that shall be a saving faith for 
which the small minority is to be rewarded by giv- 
ing them absolute and uncontrolled dominion over 
the lives, liberties and property of the other nine- 
tenths, who cannot see it in the same way. 
Submission to the General Government in all 
things is not merely a condition of peace with the 
States already at war; coercion for the same pur- 
pose is extended to States in which there is no war, 
legal or actual. In Maryland, for example, a de- 
cree has been made that the State Government 
shall be wholly revolutionized. Four- fifths of the 
people are, without doubt, opposed to the change, 
but by means of brute force, and a system of test- 
oaths, prescribed at Washington, the State Govern- 
ment is entirely taken out of the people's hands, 
and all political power put into the keeping of not 
only a small, but a venal and false minority, which 
alone is permitted to vote, ihts is not a republican 
Government, but to all intents and purposes ^n 
aristocracy, the Government of a few, and it will 
not be the fault of the system if it does not turn out 
to be an aristocracy of hypocrites and thieves. The 
effect of this contempt for State rights, is seen, not 
only in Southern States, or States on the borders of 
the South. In Pennsylvania last year, and only a 
few days ago in Indiana, companies, battalions, and 
regiments of Feoeral soldiers, without a pretense of 
right, poured their votes into the balljtbax to 
overwhelm the true voice of the people at a State 
election. ^ 

Such is the contrast between us on one subject.© 
There is another upon which the divergency of our 
views Is equally striking. It happens, by the per- 
mission of God's providence, that two distinct races 
of human beings have been thrown together on this 
continent. All the mental characteristics as well 
as the physical features and color of one race, make 
It lower In the scale of creation than the 



other. I need not say how much lower, for 
I suppose there la no man here who does 
not know the difference between a white man 
and a negro. The negroes themselves are per- 
fectly coDgolous of their inferiority ; nobody 
but an Abolitionist ever thinks of denying it. The 
white men asserted their supremacy in this country, 
astheyt^id everywhere else in the world. They 
founded a nation, and framed a government to be 
controlled exclusively by themselves and their own 
posterity . They agreed, because it pleased them 
to do so, that they would share their privileges upon 
certain conditions with other persons of Caucasian 
blood who might settle among them, but they were 
not bound to take Tartars, Mongols, Chinese or 
Negroes into their political partnerFhip , and they 
declared that they never would. They claimed, 
(somewhat proudly it maybe,) their eld and hard- 
won right of domination, and gave the negro— not 
political power, or the right of ruling— but only such 
protection and kindness as were due, in a govern 
ment of laws, to a subject and inferior race. 

The Abolitionists look upon all this with perfect 
horror. They assert everywhere, in season and out 
of season, the natural right of the negro to political, 
legal and social equality. Their theories of mis 
cegenation are too disgusting to be mentioned. 
Even by men in high authority, negroes are insult- 
ingly preferred to white men. The Attorney 
General has decided (conscientiously, no doubt) that 
lif groes are citizens — a part of the Government — 
and therefore capable of holding office and exercising 
public authority over us, as, in point of fact, many 
of them do at this moment. In the States thoroughly 
abolition ized they are allowed to vote, and the votes 
Of negrres added to the votes of white men with negro 
principles, can trample down the true white man 
who is faithful to the rights of his race. Notcontent 
with doing this in their own States, they extend 
their process of iquaiization'into other States , where 
they use what they call the war power, to rob the 
white man of his property, and bestow It on the 
negro. In all their measures, military and olvil, 
in the new Territories and the old States, you see 
this pervading principle at work, stripping white 
men of the rights, inherited from their ancestors, 
and clothing negroes with powers and privileges they 
never possessed before . 

Now, if the African race could be elevated so as 
to make it, in fact and in truth, the equal of the 
white race, then we would lose nothing by the pro- 
posed equality of the two. But that is not possible, 
and our opponents know it as well as we do. A 
negro will still be a negro in spite of proclamations . 
You can degrade the white man to the level of the 
^egro— that is easily done — but you cannot lift the 
negro up to the white man's place. All close and in- 
timate connexion, political or social, tending to pro- 
duce equality between two nations or races natu 
rally differing from one another, has the effect of 
levelling, not upward but downward j and the 
degradation of the superior nation does not 
stop even at the point origlaally occupied 



by the lower one — the amalgam has aU 
the vice and weakness of both, without the strength 
or the virtue of either. "What would have been the 
history of this continent if its white inhabitants had 
gone down to the level of the nexroes two hundred 
yearf agol And what will be its future history if we 
now submit to the same degradationl Respect for 
the memory of our ancestors; fidelity to the rights 
of our ctildien ; our own interests and the interests 
of the civilized world, require us to keep and main- 
tain this Government in the hands of white men, and 
to repudiate with abhorrence every measure wl ich 
is calculated to bring upon us the shame and the in- 
famy of a voluntary descent to negro equality. 

Aga.m : the Democratic party believes in law ard 
erder— in the regular administration of justice by 
properly appointed tribunals— in trial by jury aid 
the great writ of habeas corpus. We knew very well 
how sadly the people must suffer without these inesti- 
moble institutions. We had read In the history of 
other countries how men were murdered, androbaed 
and kidnapped for the want of them; andwh-nwe 
saw in our own Constitution a provision that no man 
snould be deprived of life, liberty, or property with- 
out due process of law, we were sure that we under- 
stood 4he fuUmeanlDK, and appreciated the mighty 
value of those sublime though simple words 

But, according to our opponents, we were utterly 
wrong. Their chief law officer has told us not only 
that the President, without any process of law. may 
order a citlzsn to be arrested whenever he pleases, 
but he may delegate the power to otherf , and they 
to others again, until all the favorites and minions 
of the Administration shall have unlimited control 
over all who presume to doubt its infallibility ; and 
this power to deprive freemen of their liberty to b3 
accompanied with the power of suspending the 
pTiYilene ot habeas corpus, and of abrogating at the 
same time all other laws which might afford their 
victim a chance of redress. This is not a mere ab- 
stract theory of the Abolitionists; they have 
practiced upon it to such an appalling extent, that 
more innocent persons have been kidnapped and shut 
up in prison during three years of their rule than all 
the sycophants, and strumpets, and spies about the 
Court of Louis XIV. could Induce him to send to the 
Bastile in the whole of his long and cruel reign 

If any privilege was guarantied to the American 
people we supposed it to be the right of discussing 
public affairs by means of free speech and a free 
press . But here, again, the antagonism is perfect. 
Abolitionism has suppressed two hundred and fifty 
newspapers (I think that is the number) by arbi- 
trary orders, executed at the point of the bayonet, 
or by mobs hissed on to their brutal work by the 
general approbation of the whole party. 

Perhaps, the most curious oC all their notions, 
is. that the Constitution is binding at some times, 
and at others Is a mere dead letter; their oath -to 
support it is to be kept on certain occasions, but dis 
regarded wheaeyer It confines their powers within 
limits which they think inconveniently narrow. 
The application of this principle is worse, il possible. 



than the principle itself, for tiey withdraw the 
protection of the fundamental law at the very 
moment wbea the safety of the people most imperi 
ously requires it. When civil war breaks cut- 
when political rancor becomes fiercest— when 
party raee runs highest— when aggressions upon 
Ute, liberty, and property are most likely 
to occur— then it is that thev remove all legal re 
Btraints from the bad passions of men. What seems 
worse yet, they hsld that an insurrection in one 
State abrogates the Constitution in another, which 
is five hurdred miles off, and perfectly peaceable. 
As yet, they have tried this upon as only in time ot 
war, but all their arguments would fit just as well 
for peace. If a war policy may be sapported bv kid 
napping citizens and suppressing newspapers, what 
is t3 Madera peace policy from being sustained in 
the same way T .^urely, no sane man will prevcnd 
that it is not as necessary to preserve the peace, as 
it is to prolong a war . 

For the system of laws which our forefathers made 
and gave to us, they substitute that "necessity" 
which the common judgment and crmmon sense 
0' mankind in all ages and countries has branded 
with odiuaa as ' 'the tyrant's plea. ' -' No despot ever 
a*keJ for power to do more than what he might 
decide to oe necessary, and nothing more is needed 
to warrant the most infa nous outrages. When 
Charles I deliberately perjured himself, he said, 
and said truly encugli, that political necessiti''s. cre- 
ated by a civil war, had driven him to it. When 
Cromwell devoted all the inhabitants of Drog- 
heda, men, women and children, to indiscri- 
minate butchery, necessity was the plea upon which 
be justifiid nis brutal order, and when he drove the 
Parliament of Eagland out of their places, it wa? 
not, as he said, because "the Lord had no further 
■need of them, " but because the needs of his own 
tyrannical rule required their absence and the over- 
throw of their just authority. When Nero threw 
the Christians into the arena to be devoured by wild 
beasts ; when he commanded them to be sawed asun- 
der, to be sewed up in sacks and cast into the 
Tiber, or to be covered with pitch and then burnt 
together in great piles, he and all his loyal 
supporters pronounced it to be necessary ; for Christi 
anity was, in their eyes, "a pestilent sapersti 
lion'' which might give serious trouble to the 
power of the Caesars. Before tnat time Herod of 
Jndea had heard that a child was born in Bethle 
ham, who would one day be King of the Jews; anti 
he believed that his government could not live unless 
that child was destroyed. But, neither he nor any 
tf his provost marshals knew exactly what child 
it was, and that created the necessity of 
killing them all. The decree went forth, 
and it was no doubt executed with all proper zeal 
and right loyal devotion. There was lamentation 
and weeping and woe in Rama— Kachel mourned 
lor her children and would not be comforted, because 
they were not. But if Rachel had been an Aboli- 
tion woman, she would no doubt have been very 
,^re»tly comforted by considering that the slaughter 



of the innocents was ' 'ti'ce sary to preserve the life 
of the Government ' ' Our fathers said that no such 
power as this should be wielded here by 
any mortal man. They declared that all public 
necessities sbould be determined by the law They 
defined the offenses which it was necessary to punish 
— the evidence that should be required to convict — 
the tribunals that should weigh the proof— the form 
of the trial, ard the quantum of' the penalty Then 
they decreed that all their offlaers i hould take a sol- 
emn oa'h to be registered in Heaven's chancery, 
ne'fer to know any kind of necessity but the one 
great supreme necessity of obedience to the laws 

In our view the Government of this country is the 
Constitution and laws; whosoever sustains them 
most faithfully is the beet and truest supporter of 
the Governnjent. But Abolitionism introduces an- 
other standard of fidelity. Acquiescence in the 
violation of law is with them the grand test of pa- 
triotism, and every citizen who has such a weakness 
for the old system of law as to complain of an 
oflicer for trampling it under foot, is guilty cf what 
tney call 'treasonable language" or "disloyal 
practices. " 

We were, and are, in favor of a strong govern- 
ment— that is, a strong Constitution and strong 
laws During the period of Democratic ascendancy 
the Government, in that sense, was powerful 
enough to shield every American citizen from every 
(jpecieg of wrong. It brought securir.y to his fire- 
side, spread its guardianrhip around him wherever 
he went, and, like a protecting angel, it hovered 
over him and watched him while he slept. Now it 
is so weak oontemp'ible and powerless that it. can- 
not save the most upright manor the most virtuous 
woman from being kidnapped even ly its own officers 
at any hour of the day or night. 

This wide antagonism of principle carried out In 
measures so aggressive upon public liberty, produces 
the moral effect whi ih might be expected. Pohtioal 
institutions so administered cannot have the love of 
the people who are oppressed by them. Tiose who 
rule in taii fasuion will infallibly fl ad themselves 
where Macbrth was In his tlu a^e. Terrorism 
may quiet many, and the venal can always be 
bought, but tho.e things which should accompany 
a free government, 

"As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends 
It must not look to have; but in their stead 
Curses not loud, but deep, moutb honor, breath, 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare 

not. ' ' 
The indignation which swells up in the great 
soul of the American Democracy may be easily 
allayed ; but not so tne animosity that rankks In the' 
minds of our enemies. It is easy for a magnani-* 
mous people to suffer and forgive, but ' 'they never 
pardon who have done the wrong. ' ' The Abolition ■ 
Ists hate us with all their strength, and all their 
Bouls ; and they give expression to that sentiment 
in language perfectly unequivooaL One of their 
leading Senators, in a speech at Washington, advo- 
cated the Introduction there of the treatment which 



tbe opponenta of the Administration received in 
Kansas, namely, to shoot tbem down. Another de 
dared on the floor of the Senate, itself, when fpeak- 
U3K of certain men who had been unlawfully arrested, 
and kept in prison for upwards of a year, 
that, in his opinion, they were dealt with only too 
mildly, and if he had been allowed to have his 
way he would have hanged them; in other words, 
he would not only have kidnapped them, but he 
would have murdered them into the bargain. An 
admiral of the navy, born in Oonneoticut. publicly 
ixpiffSid his willingness to turn the arms 
of his men, if necesjary, against the peo 

'•pie of his native State. The ocoaslo which 
br u^lt this forth nas a pendisg eleoti)a l- th« 
btate c f C innectlout at whleh the people were mak- 
ing an effort to choose a Govtrnor of their own b- 
toe t eaBona')le means of voting for aim at th* 
j-ol a TheOeneral-in Chief of the army, (Hal- 
leck, ) in a letter deliberately written for pub- 
lication, asserted that the army would crush tbe 
southern rebellion first and then put its heel on 
' 'the copperheads of the North ' ' A new species 
of ekquence has been introduced into nearly all 
their public discussions. Democrats are constant 
ly reminded that they should be thankful for the 
mercy which has let them live so long It is 
£0t persuasion that hangs upon the lips of 
their orators; they bring down the cheers 
of their audience by the visions they paint 
of ropes, gibbets, and daggers, and 
when one of them announces that all Democrats 
are traitors , and he longs to put the knife up to th" 
handle in the heart of every traitor , the sentiment is 
echoed bya deafening shout. Even the minister" (or 
those -vvh) call tlemsetves ministers) of the christian 
religion are suborned Into the service of this ferocious 
Moloch. Christ said that every professed follower 
of his, who hated his brother, gave conclusive evi- 
dence that he was a liar and a murderer. But the 
Abolition preachers— ' 'those hireling wolves, whose 
gospel is their maw"— are not ashamed to avow the 
most intense malignity against all who differ from 
them. They make their conventicles ring with de 
mands for the extermination of men, women, and 
children, by millions, through half a continent, and 
even the sacred oflfice of prayer, as they conduct it, 
becomes a long howl for blood. 

Is it any wonder that cnder thymic of such a 
party, all the joints of society should be dislocated! 
They have hopelessly divided the country, not 
geographical) y, but morally— they have not sundered 
t^e territory, but they have cloven the heirt of the 
nation in two The limits by whioh they have sepa- 
rated us, is not any natural boundary, but a bound - 

' ary created by the sentiments whioh they have 
forced between us— not the Potomao, the Ohio, and 
the Miisiesippi, but the far more impassable streams, 
which, according to Milton, water the dreary abode 
ot the damned : 

* 'Abhorred Styx, th« flood of deadly hatb. 
Sad Acheron of toEBow, black and deep — 
Cocytus named of LAM iI^TATION, loa.. 



Heard on the rueful .o'r-am ; fierce Phlej^ethOBl 
Whose wavesoftorrentfire inflame with raok " 

It is perfectly manifest that the principles and 
measures of the Abolitionists are, and must of ne- 
cessity be, incompatible with the safety of a govern- 
ment like ours. They put it to a work which it was 
not intended for, and which it cannot do withoat 
destroying itself If you have a threshing macaine 
and place it under the charge of a man who uses It 
as a break r of anthracite coal, it must infallibly fly 
to pieces. So the operations of your political system 
must be oonfioed to the purp ses designed by its 
framers, or else you must take the Inevitable conse- 
quence of breaking it up. The more 
exquisitely the several parts of it are 
adapted to its one legitimate purpose, the more 
certain It is to be utterly ruined by applying it to 
another. Nor does it make any differenc ? whether 
the new object proposed be In itself good or bad. 
Indeed, any government, however constituted. Is 
perfectly sure to wreck those laws whioh are tha 
essential parts of its structure, whenever it attempts 
to work out the object tf some ' higher law, ' ' which 
does not properly belong to it. 

All the pages of history are covered with lessons 
which teach this truth. During the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries the rulers of Europe took it 
nto their heads that the great paramount interest 
which they must look after was tiie spiritual welfare 
of the people ; their temporal prosperity was nothing 
compared to their eternal salvation. They resolved, 
therefore, to introduce into their governments the 
Higher Law of true religion. Bat what came of iti 
The Higher Law trampled down all other laws, and 
tore the whole framework of society into fragments. 
Rebellion, Insurrection and civil war became the uni- 
versal fashion— millions were slaughtered ; France 
was convulsed ; G-ermany was laid waste and almost 
depopulated ; the city of Prague, which began the 
thirty years' war with two hundred thousand inhab- 
itants, closed It with less than four hundred human 
beings Inside of her walls. All the land in Ireland 
was confiscated four times over, and for ages to- 
gether generation after generation of her best and 
oravest men were ruthlessly murdered. England 
offered no terms of peace except upon the aban- 
donment of the Catbolio faith, which the Higher 
Law pronounced to be false. But though Ire- 
land was many times conquered; was trampled 
down again and again, subjugation brought no 
peace ; It was only civil war g ine to seed. Peace 
and security, and justice and order never came 
back until England slowly opened her eyes to the 
truth, and acknowledged that the whole doctrine of 
the Higher Law was a great, oomltigated, mon- 
strous, bloody lie. 

We have had some experience with this same kind 
of Highei Law in our own country. Ten or twelve 
years ago certain Yankee politicians, and their hum- 
ble imitators in other parts of the Union, forming 
together a very powerful party, proposed tne prac- 
tical disfranchisement of Catholics and foreign- bom 
citizens. In place of the Constitution they wanted 



the Higher Law of a Protestant and 
exolnsively native domination. New England 
pretended to be in an agony of terror, lest the Pope 
and the Oatholio churoh would do her some grlevious 
harm; every member of the Massachusetts Legisla 
tare but one, was sworn in secret to support the 
Higher Law; a lying priesthood hounded on the ig- 
norant crowd, just as they are doing now; churches 
were burned ; nunneries were assaulted ; Catholics 
were driven from the polls and run through with 
pltohforljs. If that party had got hold of the Fede 
ral Q-overnment, as it seemed at one time very like- 
ly to do, and put its Higher Law in full operation, 
civil war would have been as certain as it is now. 

You can easily conceive how other applications of 
the principle would worli in any given case. For 
Instance : The municipal law of all our States has 
the protection of private property for one of its 
great objects ; it allows the rich man to keep what he 
has, and poverty Is forced to be content with 
Its ' loop'd and windowed raggedness. " But 
the Higher Law ot Christian charity commands 
the rich to divide with the poor. It is, besides, a 
great public evil, unjust and unnatural, that one 
person should be compelled to struggle for the bare 
necessaries of life, while another, no better than 
he, is rolling in the luxuries of superfluous wealth 
Bat suppose we were visited by an act of Congress, 
or an Executive proclamation in favor of the Higher 
Law, backed by an army with banners, to enforce 
an equal division of goods and lands, can any body 
doubt that civil commotion would be the conse- 
qtiencel The foundations of order would be broken 
up ; the rich would refuse to part with the half of 
their property; the poor would think themselves 
licensed to plunder it all, and the agents of the 
Higher Law would do as they have done elsewhere; 
rob both classes alike. 

Apply these plain and simple principles to Aboli- 
tionism, In doing so let us concede that party to be 
(what it is not) orthodox on every subject but that of 
African slavery . Assume, also, that the relation of 
., master and servant, In the Southern States, is 
wrong morally and religiously. Nevertheless, It 
Is a "fixed constitutional fact," that the United 
States are furnished with no legal power to interfere 
with it ; and any attempt by them to do so is ipso 
facto destruction of th« Federal Government, for 
while It is engaged in the execution of the Higher Law 
it cannot perform the proper functions actually as 
Signed to it by those who made it. We are therefore 
without a Government; anarchy spoliation and 
bloodshed, conflagration, terror and tears, come in 
the place of Government and law. 

Every one who reflects will admit, that if this 
perversion of the Government to the purposes of 
Abolitionism, or any other purpose Inconsistent 
with Its laws, had taken place at a former period, or 
under an earlier President, the same disastrous con 
eequences must have followed. The time never was 
when we could run our vessel on such a rook as that 
without making It a total wreck. Nor Is there a 
single man, with understanding enough to raise him 



one degree higher than an idiot, who does not 
know, that if a Democrat had been elected when 
Mr. Lincoln was, the caree' of the country would 
ftill have been onward and upward ; asfr;?, united 
and glorious as tvei 

It is clear beyond possible doubt, that the Ameri- 
can people had their choice in 1860 between the gov- 
ernment of their fathers, with continued peace and 
prosperity on one hand, and on the other a Higher 
Law inconsistent with the Government, accompanied 
by a train of devilish horrors It was blind folly to 
expect that the law and the Higher Law 
would reign together ; for Higher Law will 
' 'bear no brother near the throne ' ' Its ' 
mission is to tread down whatever opposes it. 
In every age, and In all countries. It has been In- 
tolerant, dogmatic, demoniac in temper, inexorable 
in Its demands, recklessof all ustratnt and ever ready 
to carry Its ends by mT 4 force • It disdains all com- 
promise— it carries no olive branch— it takes both 
hands to wield its merciless sword. It makes its ap- 
pearance on every theatre of its action with threats 
of slaughter ; itputicn thaport of Mars. 
' 'And at its heels 

Leashed in like hounds, fire, sword, and famine 

Crouch for employment " 

Our present experience is enough, and more than 
enough, to prove all this . While the Federal Go- 
vernment was administered according to its own laws, 
and while its existence was threatened with no seri- 
ous danger of Higher Law, our country wan prosper- 
ous beyond example. Her ways were ways of plea- 
santness, and all hf r paths were peace. When the 
Abolitionists came into power, disaster, disgrace 
and discord came with them ; a: d final ruin flero ly 
drove her ploui^h share through the natijr. By 
their fruits ye shall know them. 

But we ought to have known this without learn- 
ing It In the dear school of experience. We were 
sufficiently warned. Every statesman of all par- 
ties and sections who had a hand in making the 
Government, told us that it would last so long, 
and so long only , as it was conQned to the proper 
and legitimate purpose lor which they intended it. 
We were told, not by tne Democracy only, but 
by the chiefs of the great party opposed to us. that 
the success of Abolitionism would be fatal to the 
Union, and peacfe of the nation. Moreover, the 
Abolitionists themselves did not deny that the over- 
throw of our political system was their object ; 
their exprees pur^os*, ttelr del berate aim. — 
Their chief priests declared that they could reach 
their purpose only by marching over the ruins of the 
Federal Government and the Christian Churoh. 
The greatest of their orators claimed it as his higfiest 
honor that he was not only an Infidel to the religion, ' 
but a traitor to the Constitution of his country. One 
of their principal newspaper organs hab'tuilly de- 
nounced the Federal eompa«t as a ooyenant with 

*lmplger, Iracundus, Inezorabills, acer; 
Jura negat sibi nata; nihil non arrogat armis. 

[Horace, 



hell, while another mallgnea tho fliig of the Union 
as the emblem of a lie Another fhlning light 
of the party gave a practical exposition of its 
creed. He was a coarse, low ruffian, who for years 
had followed no business but that of a horse tblef, 
and he had committed many base and treacherous 
murders in the Western country. He went to Canada, 
and there, with a few confederates, he planned a 
conspiracy to overthrow the Federal Government 
and conquer the States, an enterprise in which he 
hoped to succeed mainly by organizing among the 
negroes a general system for the butchery of their 
masters. He sneaked into a peaceful Virginia town 

Aid at midnight began to put the H'gherLiiw in 
force ky stealing the public prop*rty and shooting 
dcwn the unarmed and defenceless people — 
He was taken and hanged ; but it seldom hap- 
pens 'hat the greatest benefactors of the human 
race receive such posthumous honors as the Abolition- 
ists bestowed on John Brown. They amounted al- 
most to an apotheosis. From poets and orators, from 
clergymen and politicians, from senators, 
governors and statesmen of every class, 
from primary meetings and legislative 
bodies, the expressions of admiration and sympathy 

• were boundless. Ever since that time, the most 
popular music they have, consists of hymns to his 
memory, and hallelujahs to his great name. Whence 
came all this c-cstatic reverence for the character of 
suchamani It was not given because he was a 
p.urderer; other men havecommitted murders with- 
out being worshiped for it. It was not merely because 
he was a thief, for they have among them many 
others, who have stolen on a far more magnificent 
Boalo than he did. No, they loved him because he 
was like themselves, a deadly enemy to the 
Government, Constitution, and laws of the land; 
because he was the boldest apojtle and the earliest 
martyr of that Higher Law, which was destined to 
work out our political ruin. In their estimation he 
wa3 a greater man than Pretldent Lincoln himself, 
b-cause he preeedei Mr. Lincoln with a ''procla- 
mation of freedom, ' and besides it came out of him 
wlvhtut any ' 'pressure ' ' It may be said that i 
smelting the words and acts only of their ultra 
men. Take then the utterances of the most 
moderate among them ; the careful, sober minded, 
reflective Secretary of State. He has many times 
avowed his devotion to the Higher Law, and a speech 
of his injMassachusetts, during the canvass of I860, 
pledged Mr. Lincoln as a disciple of tbe same 
school. Did he mLsucderstand the destructive ten- 
dency of Higher Law 1 Did he mean peace and union 
and the harmony of the States 1 No; In his Ro- 
chester speech, he told us truly what would be the 
effect of his doctrine— "an Irrepressible conflict 
between the opposing and enduring/orces" of the 
North and the South, which conflict of force was to 
last until the Higher Law of one section should put 
the legal rights of the other under its feet. 

Now, after all the solemn warnings we received 
from all the great statesmen of the country, that 
AboUtlOLism would be fatal to our peace, and after 



we had heard the admissions of their own leaders, 
that it was their very purpose and design not to ad- 
minister the Government, but to destroy it, what 
right have we to be astonished at the prodlgiouis 
ruin which surrounds nsl We may lament It, in- 
deed, but not with amazement, for It came In th* 
natural course and sequence of things. 

But are these calamities of so long a life that they 
must have no end 1 Is there no chance ot restora- 
tloni The answer Is that our hope depends on the 
number of votes we poll for George B. UlcOlellan on 
the 8th of November. As long as the Abolitionists 
remain in power they will press the Higher Law and 
we can have no order or justice. But McOlel- 
lan has said that he will make the Constitution tbe 
guide to his path and the lamp to his feet. If he 
Is elected he will also swear to preserve, protect 
and defend that sacred Instrument against al 
opposers, come from what quarter they may. 
Those who know him have no shadow 
of doubt that he will faithfully keep and perform his 
solemn covenant with God and the country He Is 
not the man to play fast and loose witb Lis oath. 
Then the Higher Law will give place to the law of 
the land. I am as thoroughly and profoundly con- 
vinced now, that peace and Union will be the result 
ot DIeOlellan's election as I was four years ago that 
disunion and civil war would be the consequence of 
Lincoln's. 

But if the South, after all their rigftis are conceded, 
should still refuse to perform their duties, then the 
coercive power of military force will be legitimately, 
fairly and most effectually exerted to compel them. 
I am not*only no believer in the right of secession, 
bat I go further than even an Abolitionist would ask 
me to go. I deny the right of revolution. No sound 
man can adopt the heresy announced nj Mr. Lin- 
co'n when he was a member of C jngress, that ant 
portion of the people can overihrow ihe authority of 
tae »s ablished governm»ut merely b c^use they are 
diss-tisfled with it and desire a chaoge. Resistance 
m re usurpation is of course anoth;r thing— not 
revoiUiion but the direci reverse. That divine rev- 
eJa-lon Is true whic> pronounces all leoelllon 
againsc lawful government to be as thisln of wltch- 
crafs No Government can consent — no constitu- 
tional ruler has a riaht to consent— that the empire 
under his authority shall be dismembered. 

But a war for this purpose. If war there must be, 
under General McOlellan, would be conducted with 
an object, and that object would be the simple rt- 
storation of the laws to their just supremacy. Its 
character, as well as its object, would be changed, 
and the brutal atrocities which have disgraced us in 
the eyes of the civilized world, would be wholly dis- 
continued. 

Indeed, there Is no subject on which the character- 
istic diflerence between Democrats and Abolitionists 
displays Itself more clearly than on this question: 
"How shall an Insurrection or a rebellion against 
the laws and Government of the Union be dealt 
with!" Both the parties have had an opportunity 
to put their views on record, and both have given an 



8 



\ 



oflaclal exposition of their respfotive creeils. Per 
Laps I have some special knonledme of the way it 
was done on our side. 

Abolition and seceESlon began to make their mu- 
tual prtparations lor an Irrepressible conflict before 
the close of the last Administration. Of courFe,we 
said to the former that they ought to concede to the 
Soathern States all their legal rights, atd that 
peace, thouKh possible, was not probable on any 
other terms. I speak what I do know when I say 
that, if the President elect and his party had given 
an express asfnrancs and safe pledges to govern ac 
cording to the O>nstitution, and en all Disputed 
points to be guided by the exposition of the proper 
Judicial authority, there would and could have been 
no war. But they refused this flatly and defiantly, 
and even went so far as to have their refusal inserted 
in the inaugural speech. 

To the South we said that secession was no remedy 
for any evil, actual or apprehended— that a division 
of the country was an unendurable wrong to us— 
that they were bound to fight out their battle 
against Hiirher Law inside of the Union, with the 
vantage ground of the Constitution in their favor 
"We held that secession was a nullity, and the Fede- 
ral Government was as much bound to execute its 
laws after secession as before, and that if any con- 
siderable number of persons would oppose the laws 
by force, the military power not only might lawful- 
ly, but must necessarily, be used to put down such 
opposition . 

But we declared that the General Government was 
sovereign within its sphere— directly sovereis?Q— and 
acted upon Individuals, not upon States. In execut 
Ing the laws, State lines were no more to be re 
garded than county lines in the execution of State 
laws. Tnerefore, the force that sustained the laws, 
must be directed against the force that opposed them, 
acd the individual insurgents were personally re- 
sponsible for any insurrection— not the State in its 
corporate capacity. We repudiated utterly the whole 
Idea that war could be declared by the President, or 
by Congress, against a State. We had no right, au- 
thority or power to put all the people of 
a State into the attitude of public 
enemies merely because some persons within the 
State bad done or threatened to do certain things 
Inconsistent with th'r'ir Federal obligations. On the 
contrary, the. Innocent people — thos e who were no 
way concerned in the rising— were as much entitled 
to the protection of the Federal Government as if 
they lived in any other State, anl in r>.i ■ had a 
strong* r claim to it. for they m-ghi n«e<i it viuch 
more 

This view was not only faultless in theory and un 
answerable in reason and law — and no answer to it 
wasever attempted— but it was practically a point 
of the most transcendent importance that ever was 
submitted to the judgment of any human being. It is 
perfectly certain that nine-tenths oi the people of the 
Southern States, take them by and large, from 
the Potomac to the Gulf, were devotedly attaohed 
to the Uaion. Mr. Lincoln, four month s after his 



inauguration declared, in a message to Congress, 
thit there w^s not a majority for secession in any 
*tate except, perhaps. South Carolina. Y^t war 
» BB made on the States, and the innocent were con- 
founded with the guilty— the friends of ihe Union 
were compelled, iu self-defense, to unite with its 
enemies, and now, instead of dealing with a tenth 
of the people, we have a deadly and terrific conflict 
with all of them. They are not only unanimous 
against us, but driven to desperation, and mad- 
deied by the most brutal outrages on their property, 
persons, and families. The Abolitionists said that 
the South could not be kicked out of the Union, at'tt, 
as to the majority, they were probably right; bo^ 
they certainly succeeded in driving them cut witlr 
the bayonet, the oAnnon ball, and the torch 

Let me illustrate this by an analogous case, 
which very nearly happened in Pennsylvania. The 
public authorities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny 
county borrowed a large sum of money, amounting 
to millions, and gave their bonds for it, with ths 
full and unreserved approbation of the whols 
people. After they used the money for 
their purposes they were called on to pay an in- 
stalmt-nt of interest., which they refused, and an- 
nounced their determination to repudiate the debt. 
The Commissioners, the City Councils, and a larg% 
party took measures to resist payment with all the 
force at their command. This was net only an act 
of gross dishonesty, but it was flat rebellion against 
the laws and Government of the State. W hat did the 
State dol It arrested the wrong doers, Imprlsoncrt tns 
Commissioners and the Councils. If a force of re- 
pudiators had been organized to resist the legal pro- 
cess, the State troops might have been called out to 
meet it and quell the insurrection. But if the Go- 
vernor had made a proclamation of war against the 
whole county, ordered their crops to be destroyed, 
their mills, houses and barns to be burnt, their 
towns and cities to be sacked, they would soon 
have forgotten the original quarrel— all w< uld have 
united in one eflort for mutual defense— ajid even 
outside of the county Democratic traitors might 
have been found base enough to sympathise with a 
community so harshly and hardly used . I defy all 
human Ingenuity to show me a reason, founded on 
law, poliey or humanity, for making a distitction 
between rebellion against the State in a county, 
and rebellion against the Government of the Union 
in a State. 

But, my fellow citizens, I have detained yon too 
long. I have but one thing to say before I cor.cludf . 
Mr. Lincoln has committed two great offenses 
against the country- the removal of the Conntitn- 
tionand the removal of McCleilan— te retired them 
both. The citizens acted under the orders of the 
Constitution as the army fought under the c 'mmand 
of McCleilan, unitedly, promptly, cheerfully, witD 
one heart and one mind. Now, we s.ay of tne Con- 
stitution, as the army says of lis General, "Giveu» 
buck our Old Commander r' And we coup' e these 
demands together, because the n-storalion of one will 
be the restoration of both. 



Printed at the "Age" Office, 430 Chestnut Street. 





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